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Thursday, July 22, 2010

Best Friends

Once upon a time a little girl came home excited in her first week of school and announced that she had a new best friend and the friend's name was "Rupkini". Her mother tried to gently suggest that perhaps she actually meant "Rukmini" but the little girl insisted that she had it right and got quite indignant at the idea of not knowing her own friend's name.

A couple of decades later her son came home from school everyday with tales of his best friend "Abhishal". She gently tried to suggest that the name would probably be "Abhilash" but since her son seemed determined to go with "Abhishal", she thought of her own childhood and gave up.

This post should have been written a year and a half ago. They were inseparable (as Rukmini and I once were) and when Abhilash moved to another town at the end of last year, it hit Rahul hard. He has a new friend but keeps referring to Abhilash. He knows that Abhilash now lives in another city but speaks of him as though he were in school. It's hard not to feel sorry for such a little boy. Reminds me of the first time I watched him go through such heartbreak.

Awww poor Rahul. BTW we just recently moved from Chennai to Kolkata and uprooted my five-year old's life to move here. But it's heartbreaking how they accept change. But once in a while, he mentions his old friends and it does break my heart.

MayG -- He does have other friends, but none he's taken to heart quite like abhilash. *sigh* I liked that kid too. Very shy but rather sweet.

Padma -- Thanks :)

RQ -- No, it doesn't, does it? Rahul has sort of accepted that Abhilash has gone away to another place (like my aunt and uncle moved to Delhi and their daughter moved to Manipal) but I watch him miss them.